The fourth Essex Grand Prix event was held at St Benedict’s College, Colchester on 29 April 2017 with 71 players spread over the usual under 18 Open and Minor, under 11 and under 9 sections.  There were a good proportion of the prizes won by girls this time including three of the four first prizes and both under 18 events were by under 11 players!

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The Essex Under 11s played in the EPSCA Under 11 East Zone at Mount Grace School, in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire on 18

On Sunday 26 March we fielded a team of six plus two reserves in the under 14 Minor section of the SCCU Jamboree event at Orleans School, Twickenham home of the Richmond Junior Chess Club.  This section of the event proved to be closely contested with seven teams competing for the prizes.  Although our scores could have been better in the first two rounds all the team showed plenty of character and enthusiasm to score an excellent 5.5 from 6 in the final round!

The Under 14 Team played Kent in the Eastern Zone of the SCCU tournament on 11 March at the Kings Road Primary School in Chelmsford.

We had a very keen squad of players at the West Maldon Community Centre on Saturday 11 February ready to play our first under 14 fixture for over a year!!  Sadly, the proposed match with Middlesex did not come to fruition but we were very pleased and grateful to welcome a team of eleven players from the Richmond Junior Chess Club for a friendly match.

February 7th saw 40 rapidly improving Essex Junior Chess players complete their 5th and final train and play day. Players were separated into small groups by grade with the expert group led by International Master Richard Pert (232 grade), Group 2 led by professional coach Tom Villiers (FIDE grade 2145), Group 3 led by Chess Coach Robin Slade with Essex's Junior Chess Chairman, Declan Kilcline, providing some personal coaching to Group 4.

The London Junior Chess Championships have recently concluded and several Essex players took part in the various events against some of the best juniors in the southern counties.

Sarah Weersing was the top scoring girl in the under 14 Major Section and became the SCCU Girls u14 Champion.  In the under 14 Minor Section Urbi Modhura was the Leading Girl (finishing just above her twin sister Purba Audhora).  Probably the best result by a boy from Essex was achieved by Findlay Lister who finished =4^th in the Under 12 Major Section.

Essex Juniors are rapidly improving their chess

Sunday, December 4th saw 36 Essex Juniors ranging in age from 6 to 13 travel to Writtle, Chelmsford for six hours of training, graded games and fun. With an excellent player:coach ratio of 9:1, these lucky juniors received expert coaching from 4 coaches with average grades exceeding 200, led by International Master, Richard Pert, with excellent support from Tom Villiers, Robin Slade and Russell White